The family took advantage of his entrance to leave the table and move to the drawing-room, where music was soon started, in spite of the terrible longing Buonarotti had to talk politics, and to give Robespierre an account of the different opinions of the _fête_ which he had picked up here and there. But they had dragged him coaxingly to the harpsichord, laying a sonata of Mozart before him, of which Lebas had already struck the first bars on his violin. In no other apartment was the hero-worship of the Duplays more evident than in this drawing-room, with its furniture covered in Utrecht velvet, where portraits of the Incorruptible faced each other in every conceivable form and position--on the walls, on the tables, on the brackets, and even on the harpsichord; in crayon, water-colours, plaster-cast medallions, bronze, and terra-cotta. This was the sanctuary in which the Duplays loved to congregate under the auspices of their demigod. It was here they spent their evenings, when sometimes a few friends were admitted to the intimacy of the family circle. The young women, seated at the round table, would occupy themselves with sewing or embroidery, whilst the men conversed on one subject or another, more often suggested by some letters or reports among Robespierre's correspondence, which was usually sorted by Lebas or Duplay. The hours were sometimes enlivened by music, and sometimes also by recitation. When there was music Lebas and Buonarotti carried off all the honours, but in recitation it was Robespierre who triumphed, for he had preserved from his youth the love of rhymed and sonorous phrases. As he had read aloud to himself long ago in his little room at the Hôtel de Pontivy the burning pages of "La Nouvelle Héloïse," so he read now, amidst these austere Republican surroundings, the tragedies of Corneille and of Racine, giving himself up to the magic sway of the rhythmic verse, a smile of appreciation on his lips. But that evening he was quite preoccupied, and gave but little attention to the music, as he sat with his back to the mantelpiece, entirely absorbed in the voluminous correspondence which had just reached him--letters, reports, denunciations and the like. He sorted them feverishly, handing them one by one to Simon the wooden-legged, who stood near him, either to classify them or to throw them in the waste-paper basket. Mother Duplay, ensconced in a deep armchair, was indulging in her after-dinner nap, whilst old Duplay smoked his pipe, leaning on the window ledge to watch the departure of some of the workmen kept late over some pressing work. Young Maurice Duplay ran backwards and forwards from one group to another, as lively and active as a squirrel.